As someone who has worked in the medical industry for more than 20 years, I understand the importance of stable and predictable billing. It’s not a new issue, but has finally gotten the attention of those in Congress.

One such attempt to address this issue is a bill called the Lower Health Care Costs Act of 2019. Unfortunately, this bill in its current form may cause more harm than good. Packaged as a bill to protect patients from being the recipient of surprise medical bills, it does not protect the services these patients may one day need.

For example, under this proposal, insurers would have no incentive to seek in-network agreements with air ambulances. It doesn’t take someone with a PHd in economics to realize the cost for these services will end up be shouldered by the patient or the air ambulance companies themselves, which is counter-intuitive to the original intent of the bill.

I hope our members of Congress can take a good look at this bill before moving forward and fix oversights such as this before it’s too late and patients are left without the lifesaving services they may one day need.

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